


Questionable Ethics

by maximum_overboner



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Moircy, crackling sexual tension, heavy on the banter, moira senses a crime against nature and comes barrelling in, passive aggressive bickering, saucy oneshot, some cheeky character exploration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 05:06:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13047096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maximum_overboner/pseuds/maximum_overboner
Summary: Angela is stuck with an impossible case and a dying patient. But is it worth dismissing help?





	Questionable Ethics

It is expected that, as a world-renowned physician, you will have difficult cases. Bearing witness to entirely preventable deaths through entirely preventable diseases, powerless even as you wield the bleeding edge of medicine, excising and gutting impurities. The suffering of the destitute, the sick and the dying, the wealthy and the poor alike, everyone equal in death and disease. Battlefield injuries and cancers, all of humanity dwelling under a lingering fear of illness. Not of death, but what came before it.

What is not expected, however, is to have a limbless stranger shoved at you on a gurney, his organs flapping from the empty cavity where his pelvis was, with the orders to ‘make him into a ninja’. Angela sighed, rubbing her temples. His survival had been nothing short of a miracle. He wouldn’t be able to eat, drink, was now completely sterile on account of having his genitals blown off and had suffered excruciating nerve damage that would leave him in pain even with artificial limbs. But still, Angela had hope. He had come this far and thus, could go further. Even if he was in a coma.

Genji’s soft tissues would reject the cybernetic implants needed to anchor omnic limbs. With one or two to consider, the process was smoother. A complete rebuild, replacing seventy percent of his body-mass with robotic counterparts, was to play God. And, being the first of his kind, there was no literature to refer to. Genji would either live, or die, and Angela happened to be the one presiding over that tipping scale. She sighed, running her hands through her hair, flicking the coffee maker on and waiting, counting every tick of the clock. She was broken from her haze as the door opened. Moira strode in, as cool as ever, and Angela’s late nights at the facility didn’t do wonders for her rapidly waning patience.

“Dr O’Deorain,” she said, curtly.

“Ziegler,” Moira responded, gliding in with measure steps, making a point to click her heels against the floor. “Rather late, isn’t it?”

“What time is it?”

“Two o’clock.”

Angela baulked. Where had the time gone? Had she fallen asleep in her chair? She hadn’t slept properly in days.

“I was here myself,” Moira said, “and I thought you could do with the assistance. The Shimada case is a tricky one indeed. Are you feeling alright? You look terrible.”

Angela bristled at the dig but calmed herself as best she could. This wasn’t about her. This was about her patient. And, to her irritation, Moira knew this as well. Moira surveyed the equipment, scrutinizing it, walking to the microscope.

“May I?”

“Of course.”

“Good. Sort me a coffee, would you? I’m parched.”

Angela scowled, but did so, her dislike for Moira growing with every dismissive comment. Moira peered into the microscope, surveying a tissue sample. After a moment, she stopped.

“Tricky indeed, Ziegler. But I envy you. I do love a challenge.”

“I did not,” she said curtly, her considerable patience wearing thin in the presence of this awful woman, “study for fourteen years to be called ‘Ziegler’.”

“Do forgive me,” Moira responded, unruffled, _“Angela.”_

Angela, knowing full well that this was bait, did not rise to meet it. She responded politely as if she hadn’t heard anything.

“How is your work coming along?”

“My paper? Splendidly. I think it will cause quite the stir in the scientific community. Once it’s published I invite you to read it. I couldn’t have done it without Overwatch.”

Moira tapped a long nail to her chin, thinking.

“A correction,” she said, “I could have. But slowly.”

“What is it about?”

“I’m a geneticist, Angela. I’ll let you hazard a guess.”

“I am just as much a doctor as you,” Angela responded, unwilling to hold her tongue anymore, “and I refuse to let you condescend to me.”

“Ah, you are, aren’t you? Sometimes I look at your work and forget.”

Angela, tired, overworked, desperate and furious after weeks of constant dismissal at the hands of this loon, snapped.

“You have some nerve,” she hissed, “coming in here with your record.”

Moira blinked, amused.

“My record?”

“It is no coincidence that patients seem to die around you. I don’t believe you’re an incompetent doctor because that would almost be forgivable. I think you’re something far more dangerous.”

“That’s quite the accusation. It would be rather scary, had you any proof. Sometimes, as a doctor, people just die. Tragic, certainly, but expected. But I don’t go out of my way to kill.”

“But you do go out of your way to tamper. I have my eye on you. I tolerate your presence because the recovery of patients under your care is sometimes...”

Angela faltered.

“Unbelievable. But I will not let you tinker with human lives as you please.”

Moira smiled wryly.

“A marriage of convenience, then? I’m aware you’re my junior,” she said, icily, “but I thought you could share without throwing your toys out of the pram. Or was I expecting too much?”

“It is not a matter of sharing, Dr O’Deorain,” Angela responded, “it is a matter of ethics.”

“Cowardice, you mean.”  

“Ethics,” she repeated. “Forgive me, my English is not the best. I may not be expressing myself as I should. What about ‘basic decency’, or perhaps ‘morals’? ‘Primum non nocere’?”

“Be a darling and pass me my coffee, would you? Try not to spit in it.”

Angela contemplated throwing the cup but held off. Her fingers grazed Moira’s awkwardly as she handed it over.

“When you took your oath I think you grit your teeth the entire time.”

Moira sipped her coffee.

“And crossed my fingers. We’re forbidden from playing God, you know.”

Angela conscience churned. She was right. She was right, but Angela could tolerate bending the rules if it meant helping. Honest, earnest comfort to the suffering.

“I’m very aware. But I cannot let a patient die, not while I have the means to save him.”

“Then we’re more alike than you think. Your callsign, ‘Mercy’, isn’t it? How appropriate.”

“You say this as if you’re insulting me.”

“I say everything as if I’m insulting you; it’s usually because I am. But you know,” Moira said, “there are ways to help his body adjust to the treatments.”

“It is impossible. Even with immunosuppressants, his body couldn’t take the strain.”

“It can be done if you don’t mind me playing God right beside you.”

Angela blinked, then blinked again.

“You wouldn’t need the immunosuppressants at all,” Moira said, towering over Angela and placing a cold, thin palm on her shoulder. “If you were to intervene _genetically.”_

Angela staggered backwards, hitting the counter, words failing her. It would be monstrously invasive. Inhuman. The risks were unfathomable with an untested treatment, he could be left riddled with cancer. Devastated not only by his injuries but from being tampered with on a fundamental level, the building blocks of life callously reshaped.

Moira moved forward again. Her hand found its way to Angela’s neck, rubbing delicately, then to her face as she implored.

“I require a subject,” Moira said, “and you require a miracle. Without intervention, he’ll wither away and die. If something goes wrong it’s no skin off our backs.”

“You cannot treat human beings in this way,” Angela croaked. “You cannot test on human beings.”

“Says who? You? Pioneering new and innovative treatments on your comatose patient? I would be more than happy to help. Delighted, even.”

“Doctors should not derive enjoyment from the suffering of their patients.”

“Not from the suffering, Angela; from the potential in it. A key difference. You do realize that if you succeed you’ll revolutionize modern medicine as we know it?”

“I do.”

“But you don’t think of it? When you see him there, lying on the bed, you don’t think of the accolades, the praise, the millions you’ll help?”

“I do not.”

“You’re a bad liar. I can help him. All I ask is a favour.”

“What is it that you--”

Moira gripped her by the face gently, drawing her in for a long, cold kiss. Clinical, probing, a test. Angela squeaked in surprise, then gave in to it, meeting the embrace. They stayed like this, the kiss deepening until they were pressed against the counter, hands groping and legs wrapped.

“All I wanted was the kiss,” Moira said, smug, “but I appreciate the extra. Leave the patient in operating room C-8, tomorrow night. I will do what I need to. Give him one month to recover, then perform your surgery. It will be as easy as a routine procedure. No rejections. Tell nobody of what I have done.”

“You’re insane,” Angela whispered, “to think I would ever agree to something so heinous.”

“You may have a point,” Moira responded, as calm as ever. “But I notice that you haven’t…”

Moira guided Angela’s hand to her groin, hissing at the contact.

“... Broken our little tryst? I’ve already agreed, after all, and I’m a woman of my word.”

Angela considered this, her mind awash in lust and foggy with sleep deprivation. They kissed again, heated and bitter. Genji was going to live, on her honour as a physician, no matter what it took.

**Author's Note:**

> i LOVE moira. look at that salty pissqueen.


End file.
